THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday said it is looking to impose stricter policies regarding the endorsement of celebrities and social media influencers in the May 2025 polls.
Speaking at the press briefing for the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Comelec and TikTok, Elections chairman George Garcia said the poll body is now looking at ways to hold celebrity endorsers and social media influencers, as well as candidates and party-list organizations, accountable for their campaign activities.
In doing so, Garcia said they can end the usual practice of celebrity endorsers, social media influencers, political parties and party-list organizations who claim that the endorsements and performances during campaign rallies are free and are mere contributions and donations in support of candidates.
“It has been the usual claim that if he or she is an influencer, if he or she is an artist trying to endorse somebody, they always say they are not getting paid and it is provided for free as they are friends or relatives, or that it is a mere donation in support of the candidate,” Garcia said.
In effect, the poll chief said the practice allows celebrity endorsers and social media influencers to have income without having to pay appropriate taxes, while candidates and party-list organizations will not be required to include them in their Statements of Contributions and Expenditures (SOCEs).
“In our opinion, that is considered tax evasion, and, technically, that is also an evasion of what is required from a candidate to report to us in the SOCE,” Garcia said.
He added: “If, for example, an influencer or an artist endorses a candidate, we can presume that that person accepted payment just to endorse the candidate. It will be up to them to defend themselves and say it is done for free.”
The proposal came from the Committee on Kontra-Bigay, according to Garcia.
“We are going to finetune this policy. Again, I am very supportive of this kind of initiative,” he said, adding that “we, in the Commission en banc, are very supportive (of) any initiative that can put an end to these claims of endorsements being provided for free.”
In a related development, the Comelec and Tiktok yesterday signed an MOU for the conduct of several activities as part of their information dissemination campaign and war against disinformation.
Among the initial projects of the partnership is the release of a podcast episode on what to do during Election Day.
The Comelec is also partnering with Tiktok with regards to doing fact checking as part of their efforts to combat fake news.
“The fight now is not in the regular campaign. It will be in the social media campaign. That’s why this partnership between Comelec and TikTok is a very much welcome development as far as our campaign against disinformation or fake news is concerned,” Garcia said.
“In the next few days, hopefully, we’ll be able to lay down properly the necessary plan of action and the guidelines,” he added.
